1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to paperboard containers, which are pressed into a predetermined formation with a punch and die and more particularly to a container having uniquely positioned ribbing to provide uniform stacking and denesting of stacked containers.
2. Description of Relevant Art
Pressed paperboard containers have been used in numerous environments for many years with the containers having predetermined configurations and with containers of a common configuration being stackable in nested relationship with each other. Accordingly, most such containers have a downwardly and inwardly converging sidewall that is continuous with a generally flat bottom wall along its lower edge and with a flat rim along its top edge, the rim generally being substantially parallel with the bottom wall. Pressed paperboard containers can thereby be nested in an underlying container of the same configuration until a stack of a desired height is obtained. Such containers, however, do not always stack uniformly so that the rims of adjacent containers are not parallel, i.e. the rim of one container might be closer to the rim of adjacent container in one location and spaced a greater distance therefrom at a different location along its perimeter. Since these containers have an inwardly converging sidewall, even a stack of containers that are parallel will tend to wedge together upon being nested or during the transportation of stacks of containers. Accordingly, it is sometimes difficult to denest such containers as there is not a uniform spacing of the rims of adjacent containers and furthermore, the containers are frictionally engaged and wedged together so that when an uppermost container is removed from the next adjacent lower container, the next adjacent lower container is frictionally pulled with the upper container. Similarly, a partial vacuum zone may be created between containers and also inhibits denesting of a nested stack of the containers.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a container that could be uniformly stacked in a nested relationship with other containers in a manner such that the containers could be easily and individually separated during a denesting process. It is to provide a container that overcomes the above shortcomings that the present invention has been developed.